Pinkish
by Scarabbug
Summary: A conversation on a temple balcony after the world is saved. Temporarily. One shot. Sorta almost SpyroCynder. Includes AlternateUniverse theory for AHT.


Brought into existence by Lj-er **Trunks Angel's** request for Cynder/Spyro. Standard disclaimers apply. If I had my way this theory would be canon. Spyro and all related characters belong to whoever-the-heck they've been sold to this time. Un-betaed and posted late. Probably a mistake, but we'll soon see.

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Pinkish.

He was still out there.

Cynder was still… getting to grips with time and space here. She used to be able to tell the time by the position of the moon and the way the stars were shining. Now she couldn't.

She couldn't see a lot of the stars so easily, either. Not with this new limited field of vision. She didn't know how Spyro handled being so… small. For some reason everything felt distorted after their time in convexity. Or maybe that was all those years under the Dark master's power which had made her feel so… out of touch with the world.

Except she knew that it really wasn't. Not really. Whatever the reason, she couldn't tell for certain just how long Spyro had been standing there, but she knew it was a while. Ignitus came out and looked with him, for a while, but went back inside alone. Cynder tried to read something of the feelings in the old dragon's face, but she found that she couldn't do that anymore, either. All the different tricks and traits the Dark Master had taught her seemed to be gone from her head, as if she'd never known them at all.

Eventually Cynder made up her mind to go and talk to Spyro herself. Only… how exactly do you do that? How do you just… walk up to the guy who fought you, nearly killed you, saved your life and brought you home. (_Home_. What a weird word that one was. Not at all like sharp crystal shards and dark skies, like she used to think it was. Now she's not sure of anything at all.) How do you approach someone like that?

He didn't look so all-powerful, now (come to think of it, he hadn't looked so all-powerful in the first place, that was what had made him so incredibly dangerous). Actually he was kind of…

Well, the dragonfly, Sparx, had called him _floppy._

It wasn't a far off description, really. And if he felt a fraction as tired as Cynder did, then the dragonfly's other choices of words (bushed, tuckered out, resembling a Frogweed in a too-hot-summer) were appropriate too. Floppy. Yeah. That was a good word for it.

Good grief, she'd _never_ have imagined using a word like that before…

Well. Before.

'…See anything, Spyro?'

Oh…Well, that was easier to say than she'd been expecting it to be. In fact Cynder hadn't realised that she'd approached him until she opened her mouth and started talking. Spyro didn't actually look at her, but his lips tweaked a little in an almost smile. The same one he'd given Ignitus a few hours earlier when what he'd really wanted to do was pass out again. Cynder could sympathise with that sentiment.

'Not really,' Spyro said, uneasily (he _sounded_ a little floppy too). 'But I have a bad feeling.'

'Yeah. Me too.'

He was easy to talk to. That was what was the most surprising thing. He had nearly killed her. but then she'd been trying to kill him which had… felt right, at the time, and now she wasn't sure why it didn't feel right anymore it just… didn't, and…

And now she was just confusing herself. Wonderful. Nothing Cynder hated more than confusion, and she got the feeling it was _all_ she was going to be feeling for a few weeks yet. Maybe longer.

'Do you remember it?'

The question came out of nowhere, and that was what put Cynder off guard. 'Remember?'

'You know. Him. Or it or… whatever the Dark Master is. Do you remember what it was like?'

…She still didn't know how to answer the question. She'd never been asked anything like that before, but he just stood there and… looked at her, expectantly and it's not a horrible look, or anything it just…It expects her to know answers she doesn't think she has. 'Um… sorry I guess that was a dumb question.'

'It's alright… and yes. I can remember it. Most of it, anyway. I think.'

'Just think? It's not that clear at all?' it sounded almost as if he hoped it were.

'Look, Spyro,' she sighed. 'To be honest I'm not sure. I remember some things, but… well can you remember a lot of your past?'

Spyro thought about it. 'I guess not… only through my parents, I mean.'

'Aren't parents bound to say just good stuff?'

'Not my dad, seriously, he said the world the way it was. You couldn't pull the wool over his antennae…'

'Uh…Excuse me, _antennae_?'

'Yeah. Dragonflies tend to have them. What?'

'…Dragonflies.'

'Uhuh.'

'You mean… like Sparx?' Cynder swallowed. Spyro nodded, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

'Sure, I mean… it's no weirder than being raised by evil minions, right?'

'I… guess. Does that mean Sparx is your…'

'Brother. Yeah.'

'Oh…' She should've known something like that. She can't see Spyro being brought up by Ignitus, or by Volteer and especially not by Cyril. '…How did you get hugs?'

Oh. Good… (Who was it she was meant to be cursing to, again? Was it the… Ancestors, or something? Yeah, that's right)… good _Ancestors_. Why did she ask that? she's tried to kill him, attack him and trick him into his own end and yet _now_ she was embarrassed. Cynder wasn't familiar with embarrassment. She didn't like embarrassment. She turned away a little.

She didn't expect him to actually laugh. She _certainly_ didn't expect him to say 'easy, I stayed really, _really_ still and tried not to sneeze on them,' and just go on with the conversation. 'Mom used to say I'd grow out of it. Being too big to hug, I mean. Sparx used to joke that if I spent enough time in the swamp water I might start shrinking.' Okay… funny, sort of. But Cynder was not in a laughing mood. 'I… can't see minions hugging you for some reason.'

'Actually they did.'

'Huh? They did?'

'Yeah. Or maybe it was attempted strangling… and I usually tried to bite them.' She didn't tell him about the way the darkness felt. How it wrapped itself around you the same way she'd felt one of the elder dragons (she wasn't sure which) holding her after she was thrown out of the portal after they escaped from Convexity. She didn't tell him about burning light and crystal creatures trying to rip her apart in bone crushing "exercises" to increase her strength and willpower. She didn't tell him how it felt, to pass a test and curry the Dark One's favour. She didn't tell him about the warm-cold, dim-bright feeling that sank into her scales every time the dark master wanted to make his presence felt.

Well… it'd _sort of_ been like hugging. It _felt_ very similar. And she hadn't minded, then. It was only now that the memory gave her shivers. 'Can I ask you a question?'

'Um, sure.'

'What do you remember, Spyro?'

The look he gave her was… familiar without being instantly obvious as the same expression he'd worn the first time she'd appeared from the lava (feeling way bigger and more durable and semi-stifled by the heat): mild confusion, first, then gradually changing to fear. 'You mean from Convexity.'

'Yeah. I mean… I know how it felt to me…' Painful, sharp, sudden, terrifying, confusing. 'But… what do you remember doing, Spyro?'

'I remember how it felt,' he was shuffling a bit, wings still hung low against his sides, like their bones weren't working properly, or something. 'Those attacks… they call them Furies. I remember how the fury felt.'

Fury. That was one feeling Cynder could relate to. She sometimes wondered if she'd ever stopped being angry under the dark master's control. 'You must've been really angry at me.'

'Not you,' Spyro said, too quickly for comfort. 'But.. .him. It. the thing controlling you. The thing trying to control me… I could hear him all the time I was there,' he scowled slightly. 'Whispering in my head. He knew my name, and… and I knew just what he wanted from you, and from me. From all of us.' he looked at Cynder firmly, purple eyes fixed on her face. 'I couldn't let him have it. that's what I remember.'

Cynder swallowed. 'That's all?'

'Yeah… that's all.' She thought he was shaking, but she couldn't be sure why. 'I… it's funny. I didn't realise anyone could ever be that angry… and not know exactly why. I didn't think… it was creepy. Scary, even, okay?'

'…Scarier than I was?' Cynder asked, picking the most frightening thought she could out of her own memory.

'Scarier than you.' Spyro's smile waned a little. 'Imagine, huh? I couldn't fear you… because I was more scared of myself.'

Cynder didn't know what to say. She just kept looking down into the Mushroom forests and distant swamplands. _Hers_. A voice said in the back of her head. But it was speaking for a different reason now and in a different way. She was a dragon, after all… Ignitus told her the temple was as much a part of her heritage as it was of Spyro's. She kept meaning to ask them about that huge dragon statue in the central plaza. She wondered if it's meant to be who she thought it…

'…Pink.' Spyro said suddenly. It came out of nowhere

'What?'

'The fury!' Spyro said, grinning as if he's just worked out something important. 'It was pink; really bright, really strong… pink.'

'Uh… excuse me? Pink?' she raised an eye crest uncertainly. 'You're getting worked up because you figured out you could glow pink?'

'Well I didn't remember it looking like anything before!' Spyro kept grinning. 'Well actually it's more of a _purplish_ pink but… I guess that makes sense, right? I mean, purple dragon and all and… what's so funny, Cynder?'

Cynder realised she was laughing.

She didn't know what else to do. What else could you say or do to something like that?

'No,' she said, wiping a tear from her eye. She hadn't realized she was laughing that much. She wasn't sure if she ever _had_ so the feeling was difficult to recognize. 'Not Cynder, Spyro.'

'Huh?'

'My name.'

'That is your name, isn't it?'

'It's the one _he_ gave me,' Cynder shrugged slightly. 'But… I don't think I can be that anymore. Not now.'

'…Can you just change it, though? easy as that?'

'Why not?'

Spyro shook his head a little and his wings perked a little. Cynder figured that was a good sign. 'Dragonflies… don't change their names. Me and Sparx… we'd never even think of changing mine. Your name's who you are.'

'That's right,' Cynder said, even though she didn't really get where that particular superstition came from. 'And you remember what was, right? _That_ was Cynder.'

'…And who are you now?'

Cynder stayed silent for a long moment. 'I don't know.'

Cynder wasn't a good person… maybe who she was now wasn't very good either, but at least she could be allowed the potential to change into something new at all. How many people were ever afforded a second childhood, after all? A better one than the one they had. Not that Cynder ever remembered her childhood as bad… that was what was so strange about it. She remembered her past in glimmers of warm dark and cold light. Furred freaks and monsters that fed her and bullied her and taught her how to fight.

She thought a lot of people must hate her, out there. In the woods and forests and up in the mountains. She imagines the camps where she used to keep the Manweersmalls and wonder if they'd recognize her if she ever went back…

She wondered how many people might want to destroy her. funny, that the only person who had the power to do so was standing right next to her, looking up at stars they could hardly see anymore. It must've been very close to dawn.

'A new name,' Spyro said, as if he was getting sued to the idea. 'And… a new dragon, right?'

'That's kinda the idea,' Cynder said.

'Well. Fires start with embers,' Spyro said calmly. 'So… how about it… I call you that, for now? Ember.'

The beginning of a newfound spark, Cynder –no, Ember– thought silently, giving herself a moment or two to work the name into her head. Ember. Ember. The word eats deep and makes her want to smile.

Ember the dragon.

'…I think I'd like that.'

_End._

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**Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **


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